Brand was always O’Donnell’s No. 1 choice for her upcoming talk show. During a Press Tour panel for the show in July she professed her love for him, then told an anecdote about becoming acquainted with the 36-year-old Brit.

“I didn’t really know anything about him [at first],” she said. Then, “He hosted the MTV Awards and I thought, ‘He’s not very funny. Who is he?’ And then I watched him do a comedy special about hosting those awards, and it was the most brilliant thing I’d ever seen in my life. Then I started Googling him and found out who he was in England and what happened with him, and he did an interview on the BBC that was possibly the most introspective and precise and exact discussion about fame and its effect on your personality and your world and your life that I had ever seen anywhere.”

She continued, “And then by chance, three months ago, I bumped into him at the airport, and he is shooting a move in Miami, so I’ve been spending time with him in Miami, and I find him fascinating. So he would be on an entire show.”